FLAT GAP, Ky. (AP) - As the Johnson family dug through the wreckage where their trailers once stood, they found a mud-soaked box of family photos, cherished heirlooms and a tiny porcelain statue of Jesus, but not what they were looking for.
Scott Johnson, 34, was swept away two days ago, trying to save his grandmother as a flash flood Monday ravaged this rural eastern Kentucky community.
He is still missing. Three others are confirmed dead, and the fate of four more remains uncertain. Families reported them missing, but they could be stranded in their homes, without power or phone service.
Rescue teams are slogging through knee-deep mud, door-to-door, across the rugged Appalachian terrain, painting orange Xs on each structure they search. Desperate families roam the banks of the swollen creek, looking for their lost loved ones.
Kevin Johnson last saw his son Scott wading through rushing floodwater with his 74-year-old grandmother on his back.
Scott Johnson had already guided his father, uncle and sister from the raging flood that inundated their cluster of trailers. He turned back one last time to save his grandmother, called Nana, and a 13-year-old family friend.
"We told him, "You can't make it,'" his father recalled. "He said, "I'm going to get her out of that trailer."
Standing in a cemetery on a hill overlooking the creek that had swallowed his son, Kevin Johnson was so overcome with grief he sometimes struggled to speak. He had watched his son push the boy to safety in the branches of a catalpa tree and hoist his Nana onto his back, only to be swept away.
"Scott wouldn't turn her loose, that's why he died," said Veronica Marcum, Scott Johnson's sister.
The grandmother, Willa Mae Pennington, was found dead Tuesday among debris from the family's shattered mobile homes, Johnson County Coroner J.R. Frisby confirmed.
Frisby identified the second known casualty as Herman Eddie May Sr., 65. May was driving alone in a sport-utility vehicle when floodwaters from Patterson Creek started to sweep him away. He drowned after he got out and was swallowed by the rising water, Frisby said.
The body of a 22-year-old man was found Wednesday afternoon, submerged and underneath the rubble of a broken mobile home, the coroner said. He did not release the man's name.
Rescue crews battled swarming mosquitoes, oppressive humidity and mud so thick it sucked off shoes. Utility crews lined the roads, trying to restore power to thousands still without it. A convoy of National Guard vehicles and heavy equipment rolled through the hardest-hit areas.
Randall Mulkey, chief of Allen Volunteer Fire Department in nearby Floyd County, came to help with the search. He said he's seen homes splintered into rubble, others split in half and cars strewn in places he never could have imagined. Tromping through the mud is exhausting he said, and it's devastating to see people's belongings - clothes, toys, photographs - scattered everywhere, some piled 10 feet high.
As the water receded, a crew found a car upside down and partially submerged in the creek. They called for the jaws of life to tear it open and see if anyone had perished inside. But the car's owner arrived just in time, and told the crew it had floated there, unoccupied, from her home a mile away.
"Thanks for not being in it," said Flatwoods Police Officer Justin Stevens. "We really didn't want to see that."
Seven cadaver dogs are aiding in the search, which stretches more than 8 miles from the town of Flat Gap south to Staffordsville - an area with 500 homes and 1,200 residents about 120 miles east of Lexington, police said at a news conference. Authorities estimate more than 150 homes were destroyed.
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear declared a state of emergency, giving local officials immediate access to state resources to assist in recovery efforts. Lt. Gov. Crit Luallen toured the destruction Wednesday and called it "gut wrenching."
"I think all of us who are here and who have seen this in person recognize this as a truly devastating natural disaster," Luallen said. "People have lost everything."
Families returned to the ruins of their homes to try to save what little they could. Church groups and others passed out sandwiches and water, neighbors banded together to clear heavy debris and police said they hoped there still might be some happy endings.